The kite flying season is here
M.RAGHURAM
|
This is a passion with many.
|
Photo: Sushil Kumar Verma
COLOURFUL KITES: Ready to fly high.
December and January are the months to feel the chill wind blow and look upwards towards the deep blue sky especially since the sun now isn't its usual scorching self. All this makes the perfect outing for a session of kite-flying.
Mangalore has a unique tradition of flying kites. For the last 10 years a small group of highly skilled kite designers and flyers had been luring thousands of people to the beach for the kite festivals.
Mangalore has beautiful beaches and the wind is just right for flying kites from the small Indian fighter kites to the large nylon designer and ethnic kites. The Team Mangalore that had taken the Indian ethnic kites across the seas into Europe where Yakshagana, Kathakali, the flying lizard and many more designs have enthralled kite flyers elsewhere on the globe, also hails from here.
The leader of Team Mangalore, Sarvesh Rao, says that children love flying kites very much and that's why the team tries hard every year to put together the kite festival in either December or in January when the mood is festive and the weather is right. Kite flying has a history behind it. Originally, this was a festival linked to the agrarian community, who used to fly kites to predict the weather for planting spring crops. Kites were flown to determine the prevailing wind and weather conditions. Farmers used their extensive experience to determine the type of crops that would do best for a spring harvest under the prevailing weather conditions. But over the centuries kites have become a sport and a recreation. The windy afternoons and evenings on the West Coast of India mean of lot of such flying activities. Serious kite flyers who have travelled to the Himalayas have found that the Buddhist monks living in high altitude monasteries fly kites to ascertain weather changes.
Fly away
Flying kites is fun and it needs skill to make perfectly balanced kites that can take off into the sky and remain there for hours without much human effort. The art of kite-flying was once a serious skill in families. The elders who used to have that skills used to choose the best piece of bamboo in the neighbourhood and size it to make the frame and stick coloured paper onto it. The string had to be prepared with care. It had to be coated with wax or `ganji' to make it stronger so that the `drag pressure' on the string could be reduced. Those who had more aggressive ideas used to prepare `maanja' string that were coated with fine powder of glass that gave a `cutting edge' to the string. After an experimental flight or two the kites were taken to the common area where the flyers would assemble. Kites of all shapes and colours dance in the sky during January every year.
In Karnataka, during December, kite shops are found in plenty in cities like Bangalore, Mysore, Hassan with strings and prices to suit every need.
Historians say that the kite festival was associated with Bhishma, the patriarch of the Mahabharatha.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Young World
